*2 for 1 admission for all non-UCLA students, with valid I.D., at the Billy Wilder Theater box office! FREE Admission for UCLA students!

The most influential Italian director to emerge from the generation succeeding the neo-realist movement, Bernardo Bertolucci became established from an early point as a thrilling successor to this tradition and an essential auteur in his own right. A youthful poet who came early to the cinema—at the age of 20 he was Pier Paolo Pasolini’s assistant on Accatone (1961)—Bertolucci in succeeding years evolved a self-sufficient cinematic vernacular and edifice, uniquely powerful in its fusion of techniques that give meaningful and beautiful shape to both ineffable mental states and abstract political ideas.

Bertolucci’s cinema rehearses existential questions crucial to the last Century: the elusiveness of high ideals, the danger of ready ideologies, and the possibility of escape from bourgeois complacency through sensual absorption and abandon. Family members, lovers and blood enemies (categories which often overlap) enact dramas of betrayal, conflict and compromise, often informed by Marxist readings of fascism and imperialism as applied to the contemporary scene, and interpreted as much by intuitive as by intellectual means; in particular, via Bertolucci’s mastery of camera movement to construct power relations and complex emotions. The Archive is pleased to participate in this salute to Bernardo Bertolucci’s storied career, employing archival prints from the collections of Luce Cinecittà.

All films in Italian with English subtitles, unless otherwise noted.

Please Note: Additional screenings in this series are being held at the Aero Theater of the American Cinematheque. Please visit the Cinematheque’s website for more information: www.americancinematheque.com/